The song
by Arianrod161
Summary: And a blue phone box, appearing suddenly in the middle of the forest, where the Groke was murmuring her sad, cold song – the blue phone box wasn't appropriate at all. In any way.


Snufkin was waiting for the song. Some songs comes at once, you just take a harmonica in your hands and here they are; bar after bar.

But some songs... some songs want you to wait for them. Want you to lure them by crackling fire and circles of smoke. They are almost here, at your fingertips, but if you try to catch them, they'll run, fly away like a spark and fade under the stars.

It was an evening, one of these long autumn evenings right after leaving the Moominvalley and Snufkin was not got used to the silence yet. Maybe that's why the first bar of the song was still somewhere in the air, flying away from Snufkin's harmonica. Maybe there were still sounds of the Moominvalley all around Snufkin, the voices of Moomintroll and Moominmamma and Little My. Maybe this song felt awkward with other, unknown voices. Or maybe she was jealous. Maybe this song wanted to have Snufikn only for herself.

The fire was crackling quietly and the sky was getting darker and darker – not black yet, but not blue any more, navy and still. And the song was still untamed, still almost here but a little too far away. Snufkin could almost hear her, almost catch her... and then she was gone. Flew away without leaving even one tune behind.

Some tunes are like a tail of a kite; you may snatch them and fly with them and then, sometimes you may even catch a fleeing song.

But this time there was no tune left and Snufkin felt disappointed – just like when you're waiting for some friend and this friend passes you by, doesn't recognize you and goes away, disappearing in the crowd, before you have a chance to call him or go after him. Snufkin was disappointed and everything in the forest seemed to be disappointed too, disappointed and sad. The fire burned sad, the sad wind moved the sad leaves, sad smoke rose to the sad sky. And then it was even sadder and scarier, because the Groke stood between the sad trees, huge and dark and the moss under her foots was freezing, cracking and dying, although it was still autumn and it was still a long time till winter, first snow and dying.

The forest became dark and scary and Snufkin understood why this shy, timid song flew away, without leaving even one tune behind.

Snufkin didn't like the Groke. She would startle his songs and sit on his fire, and then Snufkin would have to go somewhere else, where the ground wasn't frozen and dead. Snufkin did not like the Groke, but he understood her in some way. They had something in common – they both would wander although Snufkin sometimes found home in the Moominvalley and the Groke had no home at all. Poor Groke, she didn't even have a harmonica.

She could just growl and murmur, so she growled and murmured and this was some kind of a song too, the Groke's song, sad, menacing and cold.

And then – then something weird happened. Weird and unexpected. And unexpectedly unpleasant.

The were lots of things in the world that could surprise Snufkin. And Snufkin liked them. They were a reason to wander – to see something new, something unseen before. There were new unexpected songs or twisted trees, an odd stone in the river. And there was the sun above Moominvalley, so incredibly big and incredibly red, when Sufkin would come back home early spring. Snufkin always tried to memorize it, memorize it so well that he could take it with him to the south in the autumn. And sometimes he thought he did it, sometimes he was so sure and then it would be spring, Moomintroll would sit on the bridge and wait and the sun would be so incredibly red and incredibly big; entirely different from what Snufkin would expect.

But all this strange, odd things were – in some way – right. Appropriate. And a blue phone box, appearing suddenly in the middle of the forest, where the Groke was murmuring her sad, cold song – the blue phone box wasn't appropriate at all. In any way.

And the box was buzzing loud enough to drown out the wind and fire and even the Groke's song and the box was also flashing and all this was absolutely, enormously inappropriate. But the box still stayed in the middle of the forest, and then doors opened – too loud and too quick, and somebody went out, an odd somebody, who was not Moomintroll nor Little My nor – most definitely – Snufkin.

"Hello" he said cheerfully (this was also inappropriate in the place, where the Groke was murmuring her menacing, sad song). "I'm the Doctor."

"I'm Snufkin," Snufkin said. He stood up and put the harmonica into his pocket. The song was gone anyway, the Groke was about to sit on the fire and this someone...

"Did I interrupt something?" the Doctor asked, as if he noticed that Snufkin did not like him at all.

"No" Snufkin answered. "My song is gone anyway. I think I'm going to look for her."

"Did I startle your song?"

"No. She was first. But" he add "if you came first, you would startle the song too, with this buzzing and flashing."

"Some songs don't like buzzing and flashing. A who is – she?"

„The Groke."

Then the Doctor turned around and saw the Groke. Her murmuring was getting sadder and sadder and she was gliding towards the fire, leaving behind frozen, dead moss. Snufkin moved a little, but the Doctor did not, he was just looking at the Groke. And this – in some way – seemed appropriate.

"She is menacing, isn't she?"

"Yes, she is" Snufkin said. "She is cold and she freezes everything in her path. She sits on a fire and the fire fades. Yes, she is menacing."

"And also lonely." The Doctor whispered. "Lonely, scared and freezing, poor little Mörkö, so far from her hot homeland. Nothing in here, in this land, can warm you. I'm so, so sorry, Groke."

She can't understand you, Snufkin wanted to say. Because she never understood, when Moomintroll asked her nicely to go away or when Little My yelled the same but without any kindness.

Sometimes, very rarely, Snufkin thought that the Groke understood his harmonica. But sometimes he also thought that he understood these sad, murmured songs of her – and he did not.

She can't understand you, Snufkin wanted to say, but he said nothing, because it seemed like the Groke actually understood. She stopped and her murmuring changed. The Doctor smiled.

"Why are you here, Mörkö? What brought you so far away from home?"

And, yes, the Groke must have understood him. The Groke answered and Snufkin almost understood, he could almost hear the story about the long, long journey, about coldness and about longing. There was so much longing in Groke's murmuring, Snufkin could hear it now. He could not understand why only now. It must have been there before. And nobody noticed. The Groke stood and murmured – sang, Snufkin thought – and the frost circle around her was getting bigger and bigger and reached the Doctor's sneakers. The Doctor listened, leaning toward her, a little cloud of steam was coming out from his mouth with every breath. And somehow, Snufkin thought, that was appropriate, as appropriate as the big, red sun above the Moominvalley in early spring.

And then the Doctor clapped his hands, jumped several times and laughed.

"Yes! Yes, I can! I will take you home." He said and opened the doors of his blue box. And really, the Groke should not be able to fit into it, but somehow she was. And she was still murmuring, but now it wasn't menacing at all. Nor sad.

And the fire was still burning. Snufkin took the harmonica out, because, suddenly there were tunes all around him, tunes lured by the Groke's song, and they really wanted to be played.

Snufkin was playing, the fire was burning, the blue box was standing in the moss, in the middle of the forest and the sky was not blue, not even navy, it was black, black and glowing with stars.

"I gotta go" the Doctor said. "It was nice to meet you, Snufkin."

Snufkin nodded, which meant – me too, but I don't have to say it, do I? – and smiled.

"Come to think" the Doctor stopped "would you like to wander between the stars maybe?"

Snufkin considered it for a moment.

"If I won't be late for the spring in Moominvalley...?"


End file.
